


Spare Parts

by Crimson_Star



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Audio 034: Spare Parts, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, You will understand without listening to the audio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Star/pseuds/Crimson_Star
Summary: In a doomed city with a sky of stone, the last denizens of Earth's long-lost twin will pay any price to survive, even if the laser scalpels cost them their love and hate and humanity. The Cybermen have only just begun, and the Doctor will be, just as he always has been, their saviour. Five excerpts from one of my favourite Fifth Doctor Audio drama showing the birth of the Cybermen.
Kudos: 5





	1. Adric

**Author's Note:**

> 5 scenes from the audio: Spare Parts! I love these scenes and I think they are fantastic character growth moments for both one of my favourite Doctors and one of my favourite companions! You can certainly still understand without having listed to the audio. Just enjoy them as little snippets of a story. Enjoy!

The Doctor sprinted through the suddenly very crowded square. People, still in their dressing gowns and bare feet poured into the area overlooked the graveyard. "Can I get past please?" he shouted in frustration as more and more people pushed up against him, gasps of shock and anger running through the crowd as they looked on. The hill that had once served as a final resting place for so many passed loved ones had been almost completely overturned. Digging equipment and loading trucks and half metal people milled through the graveyard in what had been moments ago, a very secret operation to quietly empty all the graves of their occupants. The Doctor allowed himself a little smile as he hurried away. If nothing else, he had managed to alert the population to a portion of the monstrosity taking place under their noses. "Thank you. Thank you." he grumbled impatiently in his hast to leave the scene of the crime.

"Doctor! Thank goodness!" Someone shouted from over his shoulder as he approached the TARDIS. He glanced back and his eyes fell on Nyssa, who looked a little haggard but otherwise unharmed.

"Nyssa", he greeted absently. "Well done for getting back here. Sorry to keep you waiting".

The young Trakenite's gaze swept over the chaos of the square. "There are lots of people all of a sudden!" she commented.

The Doctor smiled a wider smile. "Yes, that's the idea," he admitted proudly. He succeeded in opening the TARDIS door and rushed inside. "Come on into the TARDIS,'' he urged.

"I knew this wasn't earth." Nyssa pressed as she followed him into the clean white console room. The contrast between the ship and the dark, dirty, crumbling street outside was stark.

"Yes", the Doctor conceded somewhat sheepishly, "but I had to make sure it was the planet I thought it was before-", he stopped himself, knowing what he was about to say would sound horrible.

"Before what?"

The Doctor busied himself with the controls, carefully avoiding Nyssa's eyes. "Before I take us away from here,'' he finished quietly.

Nyssa's reaction was instantaneous. "No Doctor, you can't do that," she snapped.

The Doctor jerked his head up forcefully. "You heard that bell, it's a reveille," he tried to explain, "to wake people up! And once they see what's going on, they can take control of their own destiny." He was trying to convince himself as much as his companion he realised ashamedly. But he couldn't stay. He knew he couldn't stay.

The shock on Nyssa's face was clear. She couldn't understand why he would leave all those people to suffer alone. "No, Doctor!"

"Please!" he shouted desperately. He failed to keep the unwanted guilt from his face. "Don't argue, I'm not staying!" He sighed a heavy, sad sigh. "I know this place's future."

"So do I."

The Doctor stared at her. "What?" Why can't she just listen to me and leave the matter alone! I don't want to talk about this!

"It's obvious," she insisted, "And horrible too. One day the people of this city will become the Cybermen. It's already happening." A shudder ran up the Doctor's back as he remembered the half converted man riding his half converted horse. One of the man's eyes replaced by a gaping metal hole in his skull. The other eye staring with nothing behind it. No love. No hate. No humanity. Scars lacing across his scalp, identifying the countless surgeries that had turned the creature from a breathing, feeling human into a lump of mutilated flesh and metal. The beast he rode had been no better. Except for the laboured, wheezing breathing that revealed the pain the animal still felt. Pain in it's eye as opposed to absolutely nothing behind the man's.

He bowed his head. He didn't want to confront the horrible reality. "Yes." he whispered. "Yes, this is Mondas, Earth's long lost twin planet", his face screwed up in disgust. "and I can't interfere with it's future."

"But there aren't Cybermen yet!" Nyssa cried. A flicker of hope shone in her eyes at the idea of interfering with this tragedy.

"Not yet but soon." The Doctor grimly reminded her.

Nyssa took an enthusiastic step towards him, putting herself awkwardly close to him. Demanding he listen. "We can stop it before it goes too far!" She smiled at the thought.

The Doctor's answer was quick and angry. "NO!" No one ever understood why. Why he couldn't. Even if his hearts ached to save everyone. Even if the thought of doing nothing made him sick with guilt. "If anyone changes the future of Mondas it must be the people themselves. If we're discovered here than the whole future of the galaxy will be unbalanced! And we'll be to blame!" But his desperate attempts to explain fell on deaf ears.

"But they're suffering terribly!" Nyssa begged. Don't you think I know that! The Doctor wanted to shout. Don't you think I'd do anything to save these people if I could?

"They're good people and some of them are sick," Nyssa continued. "I've promised to help."

"What?!" The Doctor gasped in outrage.

"I have to Doctor." Nyssa bit her lip, trying to hold back the rage and betrayal that coursed through her at the Doctor's coldness. "And if you won't get involved, then I must stay behind and do it by myself." With that, she turned on her heels and walked stiffly out of the console room.

"Nyssa!" The Doctor called after her. He hesitated for a moment, battling his conflicting feelings. Finally he rushed after her, out into the corridor. "Where are you going?"

"To get my things."

The Doctor almost froze in dismay as the reality of the situation sunk in. Nyssa was serious. "No! Nyssa!" he had to get her to understand. Understand the futility and danger her decision would bring. But the words failed to come to him. "You're being unreasonable." he blurted out.

"Am I?" Nyssa all but snarled, turning rather rapidly to face him. The Doctor inwardly cursed himself for his stupid mouth. "I want to give those people some hope! I want to stop the Cybermen from coming into existence!"

"Yes, very laudable", he sighed, running his hands nervously through his hair. "But you can't do it on your own. You're not an army!" The Doctor paced up and down the short stretch of hallway. "You can't turn the whole of history round on a sixpence!"

"I've seen you do it!" Nyssa shot back, her hands balling up into fists.

The Doctor shook his head, "Not in this case. If we stop one history, we only replace it with another. Probably equally as bad. Believe me! I know!" And suddenly the young man in the cricket outfit looked infinitely older, his eyes betraying the frailty that hid under the juvenile appearance.

"And what have you been doing?" Nyssa spat back. "What about your wake-up call?" Her hands made vague air quotes around the word.

The Doctor hung his head. Why couldn't she just understand? Why couldn't she just trust me? "Look…" he breathed, "The Cyberman's future in infamous across the galaxy. The earth's twin planet wandering out of it's orbit. It's dwindling population already millennia ahead of earth, technologically, gradually replacing bodily organs with manufactured parts." Several unpleasant images floated into his mind. "All in a final desperate bid to avoid extinction-"

"-until they finally replace their own consciousness with the cold precision of machine logic." Nyssa finished grimly, the sadness and despair clear on her face.

The Doctor nodded solemnly "The cold logic that snuffs out the spark in people. I'm not even sure they are people by the end." The metal monsters that haunted his sleeping and waking thoughts were perhaps one of the farthest things from people he could think of. "They're just so many tinned leftovers. I think I'd rather lose all my other lives than become a Cyberman." A shudder of cold fear ran up his spine at the thought. To lose my very sense of being...

"The people I met were actually very kind!" Nyssa insisted.

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. They're always kind. "Yes I'm sure. But interfering with time is like a huge game of consequences. Sometimes you play, sometimes you sit on the sideline!" He looked Nyssa straight in the eye. "Sometimes you run afterwards with a stretcher."

"Yes, we've had this discussion before." Nyssa started to breathe heavier as she fought down unwanted tears. "A pity that didn't occur to you when it came to sacrificing Adric!"

The Doctor flinched as if she'd slapped him across the face. "Ah." 

Brave Adric. Innocent Adric. Dead Adric. 

"Yes. Adric." He swallowed down the lump of guilt and grief that arose at that one simple name. Suddenly he was dragged back to that moment. That horrible moment that filled so many of his dreams. Dreams that jerked him awake at night with a cry of grief. A ship burning and splintering and exploding apart on the view screen as he sat there and watched, helpless. He turned away, no longer finding himself able to look Nyssa in the eye. "So much that never gets said….." he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "Bound to boil over sooner or later."

Nyssa was shaking with the effort of keeping the tears off her cheeks "...Excuse me I have some things to sort out." She turned rather quickly and rushed out the door, failing to conceal the first tears as they rolled down her face.

"Oh yes." The Doctor said, seemingly unaware that she was already gone. "I'll be waiting."


	2. Fallen Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit short. Just a nice little snippet. Enjoy!

"Doctor?" Nyssa padded tentatively into the room. The Doctor sat on the ground in the corner of the control room, pressed up against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest as he stared at nothing.

"Nyssa." he greeted quietly, giving her the smallest of half smiles that didn't reach anywhere near his sorrowful eyes.

Nyssa walked up to him, wringing her hands nervously. She opened and closed her mouth several times before seemingly giving up on whatever she wanted to say. Instead, she sat down slowly on the floor beside him. Neither made a move to speak and so there they sat for several minutes, side by side, lost in their own minds. "I'm sorry Doctor." Nyssa finally broke the silence. "I didn't mean it. Not in that way. I just realised what this place is and what it means…. And Adric…"

The Doctor nodded. "Poor Adric." he whispered, closing his eyes. "We never really stopped to mourn him. I suppose on Traken there are profound and beautiful ceremonies to honour fallen heroes." He could imagine the huge festivals filled with songs and hymns and mourning and laughter.

"It would seem out of place here." Nyssa sighed, looking around the sterile, white room and drawing up her own knees to her chest. "The family I met," Nyssa continued, "the Hartley's, they had very little to live on. Everything's rationed by some sort of central committee. I just want to take them some food." Compassion and sympathy shone in her eyes, begging, imploring the Doctor to let her help at least a little. At least one family.

The Doctor suddenly looked very worried. "Yes. The committee again." he mused. He did not like the sound of this committee at all. He looked up at Nyssa, staring at him with a mixture of sadness and hope. His gaze softened as it met hers. _A little extra food won't harm the flow of history, will it?_ "Yes of course you must." he agreed. Of course Nyssa was always thinking of how she could help. "I can wait."

The look in Nyssa's eyes was hard to identify as she stared back at him for several long moments. "Thank you." she said softly as she got up and walked out of the control room.

The Doctor rested his chin on his knee as he watched her leave. There was always so much left unsaid between them. But isn't that always how it is with grief? The memory of Adric burned in his head. It was always there now. It sat behind his eyes, ready to pounce whenever he closed them... It had been a horrible death.... and he had been so very young. He felt a lump begin to form in the back of his throat and he swallowed hard. He wished, just for a moment, that he could forget. Forget and move on... but how could he when the birth of the creatures that killed him sat right outside those doors? 


	3. The Final Link

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor finds himself trapped in a situation that may redefine the entire history of the Cybermen... and it all revolves around him. He's more important than he knows.

The Doctor rose unsteadily from the hospital bed. His muscles screamed at him to stop and rest. Unfortunately, he had time for neither. The attack of electricity he had suffered from the automated systems restart had left him in a pretty sorry state. He suspected if any more electricity had coursed through him, he wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.

But instead of musing on a situation that never came to pass, he pushed aside the thoughts and the pain and focused back on Thomas Dodds. The man was smiling like a jackal, his crooked, broken teeth making him look even more sinister.

The Doctor speculated with a sick feeling what Dodds would do with their new arrangement. Help in ending this world’s terrible suffering for one of his bodily organs, for one of his hearts. What would become of it, he wondered. He imagined it beating away inside a Cyberman’s cold, metal shell of a body. Another unpleasant thought it would not due to dwell on. There was not that much time for that anyways, for at that moment, Doctorman Allan strode into the room, followed closely by the Cyber-commander Zheung and four Cyberman guards.

“Take this one for processing”, the metal Commander ordered without hesitation. His natural, booming voice aided by the unsettling automated buzz that accompanied all processed Cybermen.

Dodd’s eyes widened in terror as a guard immediately marched to him and grabbed him by the upper arm. “Get your hands off me!” he bleated as the creature started to drag him off. Despite the rather terminal terms of their new arrangement, the Doctor found his hearts twisting with fear and sympathy for the men as he was dragged away to his terrible fate.

“Let him go.” he demanded, his voice coming out much weaker that he had hoped as he gripped the bedpost for support.

“His hearts!” Dodds cried as he fought not to be heaved through the door. “He promised me one of his hearts!” The poor man disappeared from view, still crying and screaming for salvation.

“I said let him go!” The Doctor shouted, shaking his finger angrily at Zheung. One of the remaining Cybermen guards marched forward smartly and applied very sudden and very strong force to his shoulder. The Doctor gasped as the added pain almost brought him to his knees.

“Be silent”, the commander ordered emotionlessly.

The Doctor barely heard him through the pain. He imagined he could feel his clavicle snapping clean in two. “Zheung be careful!” Doctorman Allan hissed, rushing over to growl in the Cyberman’s face. The guard released his hold and the weary Timelord breathed in relief. The Doctorman glanced at him in concern.

“The Doctor’s more precious than he knows.” she said.

“Am I?” he replied in a somewhat breathless tone. “That sounds ominous.” His gaze flitted nervously back and forth from the Doctorman to the Cyberman.

Suddenly, a very loud, and a very non-human voice erupted from the room’s speakers. “HOW CAN THIS ALIEN HELP US”, the Committee droned.

“Ah,” the Doctor said with a start, feeling a creeping prickle of unease spread over him. “So we’re not alone.”

Doctorman Allan promptly ignored him, focusing her attention instead on the voice of the Committee. “These are the scans of the Doctor’s physiology.” She typed a few keys on a nearby terminal and it came alive with a somewhat detailed diagram of the Doctor’s body. The prickle turned into a feeling of cold fear in the Doctor’s stomach.

“HE HAS A SECONDARY CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM.” The Committee replied. “WHAT VALUE IS THAT.”

“None.” The Doctor snapped, an edge of panic starting to seep into his voice. “None at all!”

“But look here!” Allan interrupted, “At the base of the cranium. There’s a smaller tertiary lobe.”

No, no, no You can’t mean-

“MEANING.”

“It deals with all bodily and motor functions.” the Doctorman elaborated, her voice quickening with excitement.

“ALLOWING ALL OTHER PARTS OF THE BRAIN TO BE USED TO OPTIMIZE ALL CALCULATION AND DATA ASSESSMENT.” The Committee finished.

“Exactly.” Allan breathed.

“That’s no good to you. I-I’m not human!” The Doctor stammered, grasping at any straws he could find to stop this nightmare from happening.

“THIS IS THE FINAL LINK”, the Committee concluded. The Doctor could swear he almost heard a twinge of excitement in the machine’s voice.

“I can reproduce this system in all future Cyber processing.” Doctorman Allan’s eyes were alive with joy, she was almost jumping on the spot. “We can base our entire project on him!”

The Doctor’s blood froze in his veins. “What?” His voice was barely above a hoarse whisper as true terror started to set in _No. I won’t let them. I CAN’T let them use me!_

“No more needless organ rejection and failure!” The Doctorman chattered on.

He thought back to every encounter he had ever had with these monstrous creatures. Everything they had ever done, every innocent person they had ever infested, it had all been based on him. He thought back to Adric. Poor Adric who had been snuffed out by these hideous machine men. They had all become possible because of him.

“AGREED.” The machine mind hummed. “BEGIN WORK IMMEDIATELY.”

The Doctor backed away swiftly as Doctorman Allan’s eyes fell back on him. “No!” he spat. “I will not be the template for your monstrous parodies of humankind!” He pressed his back into the wall as the Cybermen and Allan closed in. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t let this happen.

“But Doctor, you’ve saved us all!” The Doctorman pleaded.

“No one is saved!” The Doctor hissed back. _Not a single innocent person in the whole Universe will be saved if I let this happen!_

“SUMMON THE PEOPLE. BEGIN THE PROCESSING.”

“Listen to me!” The Doctor begged as he was grabbed by each arm and dragged away.

“WE WILL SURVIVE.” The Committee droned. “THE CYBER-RACE WILL BE INVINCIBLE.”


	4. No Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second last part! Enjoy.

The Doctor fought and kicked and threw himself against his captors, desperate to stop what was happening in any way he could. The Cybermen fought back, tightening their grip painfully and quickening their step. A third Cybermen joined the struggle as the Doctor doubled his efforts. Perhaps it was a fruitless struggle. Perhaps it was painfully clear that he couldn't fight his way through three cybernetically augmented creatures. But it didn't matter. The Doctor fought anyways, not caring that any semblance of dignity or grace was long since shredded. Not caring that he wasn't strong enough. His only thought was that he _could not_ allow himself to become the genetic basis for one of the most destructive and murderous races in the universe.

By the time the Cyberman managed to drag him into the examination room, his arms, shoulders, and head were littered with angry bruises. The Doctor saw the cold, metal operating slab as soon as he came into the room. It sat propped up vertically, waiting with a sinister gleam for its next victim. The thick metal manacles welded to it could not be missed. Nor could the wires and machinery that loomed over it.

The Doctor fought back blind panic as he threw himself against the Cybermen with a renewed fervour. But despite his efforts, the creatures dragged him across the room and slammed his back against the slab with a terrifying efficiency. The Doctor grimaced in pain at the rather sudden contact. He gathered himself for a moment before heaving his entire being away from his brutal captors in one last terrified attempt at escape.

For a moment, it almost seemed like it worked. The first guard lost its grip on his wrist and stumbled forward several steps. However, the momentary victory was cut savagely short. One of the Cybermen grabbed a fistful of the Doctor's hair and slammed the back of his head into the slab. The Time Lord gasped in pain as his vision was replaced with stars.

As the Doctor blinked pain out of his eyes, the Cybermen took advantage of his daze and slammed his wrists and ankles into the manacles, sealing him in place with a snap.

He yanked and pulled and struggled with all his might against the unyielding metal, the real panic starting to set in. Would they turn him into a Cyberman too? "Don't struggle, Doctor." Allan implored with a pitiful gaze. "It won't hurt for long."

"I won't let you create a race in my image!" The Doctor spat, his eyes wild with a deep, terrified fury. He sat helpless, unable to do anything but watch as Doctorman Allan's henchmen started to attach electrodes and wires to his body. He couldn't stop a shudder of pure fear from running down his spin as wires were fused to his temple.

"It's just a detailed body scan." Allan said, "To optimise your physiology with a human subject."

But the Doctor was no longer listening, consumed by the thoughts in his own head. "Especially that race!" He hissed as the metal men continued to work. "Cybermen so bloated with mechanical parts. Only cold logic stifles their natural urge to scream in agony!" He snapped his attention for the first time fully on Doctorman Allan. "How can you DO that you your own people?" he shouted. It was a genuine question. A desperate question.

"Because we're dying!" The Doctorman shouted back. "That's why we're screaming! We've been trapped down here so long we daren't even step out on our own planet's surface." Her eyes grew distant with visions only she could see. "Just the thought of the vast empty sky drives us insane! Only Cybermen can go out there and save us."

The Doctor laughed. A sort of hoarse, dry humourless laugh. "Save you?" he said incredulously. "That means nothing to them. You have no idea what you're creating!"

"No Cybermen, no life." Allan retorted. "Unless you have a better solution?" She tilted her head mockingly as the Doctor remained silent. "No?"

The Doctor stared at her. He stared into her eyes so full of fear, so full of self-righteousness and certainty. She was doing what she thought was right. She was doing the only thing she knew how to, to save her people. The Doctor understood. He knew only too well the drive, the _need_ to do whatever it took to save people. A selfish little part of him wished, just for a second, that he could shed the responsibility of a time traveller and simply give in.

 _But you can't. You know that, Doctor._ A little voice said. The little voice that sounded very much like a certain young boy from Alzerius. "I will _not_ assist you." the Doctor whispered.


	5. Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor comes face to face with the dreaded "Committee".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end has come! Enjoy, and as always I would love any comments or criticism you wish to leave!

The bioscanner, it turned out, was less of a scanner and more of an incredibly invasive and painful laser. The beams of light sliced across his body with a terrifying intensity. Despite the fact that the laser left behind no cuts, lacerations, or injuries, the Doctor still felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside. Tied down to the operating table and trapped in the room that held nothing but himself and the consciousness of the committee, the Doctor was helpless to do anything except scream. And so he screamed. The Doctor wondered, in between his angonized gasps for air, if it would be this painful when he was finally turned over to the conversion theatre. Would he feel it as his body was hacked to pieces and replaced by unfeeling metal? Or would he feel nothing except the coldness of the machinery as it invaded and destroyed his identity? Would anyone even be able to hear his screaming beneath so many layers of metal? His grim thought process was interrupted as the “scanner” raked across his torso. His scream of agony filled the entire chamber.

“WHO ARE YOU.” The voice of the Committee, while unsettling before, was petrifying at home in its echo chamber. 

“I’m not your saviour that for certain!” he hissed, still struggling to breathe.

The voice seemed impossibly loud in the Doctor’s ears, and so so unfeeling. Then it struck him, he wasn’t hearing with his ears, they were speaking directly into his mind. The revelation came with another wave of torture as the Committee burrowed deep into his mind, reaching out their greedy little thoughts in search of information. 

“Get out of my head!”, he cried, pulling desperately against his metal straps. Struggling for any kind of release from this horrific violation.

“YOU HAVE RESOURCES THAT WE NEED”, the hive mind droned as it methodically and efficiently went about shredding his mind.

The Doctor fought back, putting up wall after wall in his mind, managing to secure them just as the Committee tore them down. “How did it start?” he growled, trying to distract the hive from it’s single-minded drive. “Just a few hip replacements and breast implants, vanity’s a killer isn’t it?” The Doctor let out a pained yelp of a laugh. “And where will it end? Sleek, heartless scavengers cobbled up from space junk and other people’s bodies! But you’ll look ever so stylish.”

Another tormented scream was ripped from his lips as the scanner, this time, struck him across his hearts. His muscles spasmed torturously as his back arched up and back down against the unforgiving metal slab. The Doctor’s control slipped for a second as he sagged against his bonds, fighting to stay conscious. His vision started to darken and blur. He wondered if he would simply die here and now on the operating table. He was vaguely alarmed that it didn’t seem so terrible a fate. At least not compared to the other fate that most likely awaited him. The Committee acted immediately, using his moment of weakness to rip apart several more mental defences. He managed nothing more than a broken whimper as they crumbled away.

“THE SPEED OF NATURAL DEVELOPMENT IS INSUFFICIENT.” The Committee drilled the thought into his head. “WE HAVE TAKEN CHARGE OF OUR OWN EVOLUTION.”

“Excellent.” The Doctor shook from the pure rage and panic that was the only thing keeping him conscious. “Abolish Doctors! Somebody call a mechanic.”

“WHO IS HE.” The hive mind tore deeper into his mind. “HE IS A THREAT. WHY IS HE HERE.” The Doctor’s body shuddered with pain and exhaustion, dripping with sweat as he fought back against both the bodily and mental torture. “IS HE THE SOLUTION.”

“You have no unity.” The Doctor spat. “And logic alone can never change Mondas’ course. The nebula will destroy you!” The Doctor smiled an angry, vicious little smile. “You’re finished!”

The Committee was silent for several seconds, processing the Doctor’s words. Then it turned once more to his mind. The Doctor bit back another cry of pain. “YOU ENTERED OUR WORLD. YOU HAVE THE MEANS TO EVACUATE AND YOU WILL ASSIST US.”

Tears streamed down the Doctor’s face as the agony invaded his entire body. They were tears of pain, and grief, and fear, and rage, and everything that grew in between. He tried to choke back the torrential downpour of emotions that descended on him without warning, battering him, attacking him, hurting him worse than any torture device ever could. 

He had failed again. Failed to save Adric. Failed to save the people of the universe. Failed to protect those dearest to him. And all the while, the image that kept coming back to his mind were those eyes. The eyes that weren’t eyes but instead gaping, black, sightless holes where eyes had once been. The eyes he had encountered over and over and over again, bringing tragedy and destruction and suffering in its wake. The eyes of creatures that would rip apart the stars themselves to survive, not caring for the light they snuffed out in the process. Not even understanding that there had ever been any light there at all. 

“I will not be a part of your future!” His chest heaved with sobs as all rational thought left his mind. From the ceiling above, a metal contraption, containing many sharp implements floated down to him, hanging threateningly over his body. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure they would bother sending him to the conversion theatre at all. He couldn’t help but shrink away, pulling almost unconsciously against his unyielding manacles, not even noticing the cuts and bruises blossoming around his wrists. "What are you doing?" he barked hoarsely, knowing full well what they were doing.

“YOU CANNOT RESIST. YOU WILL BE LIKE US.” 

Those oh so familiar words blotted out every other thought in the Doctor’s mind. A violent, uncontrollable fury consumed him unlike anything he had ever known. 

“I WILL NEVER BE LIKE YOU!” he shrieked as the device lunged down and drilled into his flesh. The Doctor’s screams echoed up into the stars themselves.


End file.
